Lumos - Nox
by Genevieve22
Summary: ...But he continued to fight for one goal he knew, for a blind desire to prove to everyone that he was more than a spy, better than a traitor, and worth much more than a tattered boy from a working quarter... There are cracks in everything. So light penetrates inside ... Leonard Cohen


_NOX_

Darkness was hovering above the house. The wind was howling through the cracks of the impoverished mansion, and glass was shivering in the frames, trees were leaving their freakish shadows on the walls and their long tails drove a boy of six years old into a silent horror, the boy was looking out of the window in the attic. His mother, a quiet and an inconspicuous woman used to tell her son when her husband wasn't listening, that darkness is only the absence of light and there was no need to be afraid, but at night the father who had lost his job was coming back home from dusty bars and screams were echoing around the house, and the little boy was sent to the attic, and at the attic he was looking into the night, and the darkness was hovering above the house.

The Muggle and the Witch, the heiress of an ancient House of Prince, who dared to go against the age-old foundations of her family, by chasing after a ghostly love. Eileen Prince had never been outstanding, she used to hide in the shadow of her father, and as a result, she became a ghost of her own self by marrying a Muggle. At first, she tried to fight for her son, but the shadows were hovering above her head all that time, threatening to swallow her alive. And at the end they succeeded. The son became an orphan with the living parents. The father, unable to bear responsibility for the family, was broken by poverty and misery, the mother was carried off by some incurable the illness, and only the night remained in the boy's life. And the light of the stars could no longer drive the long-tailed shadows away.

_LUMOS_

He is nine, and the night is no longer frightens him with its inevitability. In the back yard of a beautiful house where a happy family lives, there is a swing, and a girl sits on this swing, she is as ginger as the sun, and she is definitely fascinated by the daisy growing right in the palm of her hand. It seems that the whole world is submitting to her warmth and happy smile, and her laughter is heard even to the stars, and the boy swells with pride - this girl considers him her friend. For the first time, someone cares about him and his existence. For the first time, he is next to someone who does not want to run away, clenching his fists or rushing into a fight, lowering his eyes and hastily leaving after promising the ghostly: "Everything is going to be ok." He is next to a friend who simply stays by his side. For the first time in his life, the sun rises, and this new personal sun of his has a smile of Lily Evans.

_NOX_

The letter the owl brought was to mean happiness. Mom smiled for the first time in years, the father joyfully said that "this house would be calmer without this freak," and everything spun, swirled, rushed. The night receded, giving way to an animated fairy tale from those few stories that Eileen Prince used to tell him before bed, as well as to those stories that Lily blurted nearly choking with delight. He did not believe in fairy tales, but there was a letter, and it promised a lot of miracles. So, the train set off into the world of light, unfamiliar boys in the compartment said that they did not want to have anything to do with future Slytherins, and Lily became embarrassed and said nothing. The sun disappeared behind the cloud. The battle, of seven years long, began. There was too much darkness in his life, but he was not used to sharing his fears with anyone. The impoverished life of a practically homeless boy, the eternal abusing and beating from his father, the desperate desire to learn how to write, read and do magic and just to be better than the other similar strollers from the working area of his poor town, to prove to himself that he was capable of more than aimless existence, taught him to rely solely on himself without waiting for help. For a while, however, a spark named Lily overshadowed everything else, and the shadows were successfully hidden in the corners.

There were too many differences between them: a bright friendly girl too quickly gained the fame of a universal favorite, and a gloomy and insecure boy only gained a lot of enemies. He did not care about the consequences of his actions, therefore, perhaps, he ruined everything with his own hands, pushing away from himself the only friend who did care. Later, he repeatedly recalled that stupid incident near the lake, his chagrin, and humiliation, the laughter of the boys who bullied him, who bullied him simply because they were bored and wanted to be "different from Slytherin freak" once again found nearby. Or because one of them wanted to impress the impregnable Lily Evans. There was too much darkness for light to breakthrough. Darkness became a part of his life, swallowing the excess, and hiding everything else. At heart, he knew that he had already stepped on a slippery path, but a miracle that could bring him back on the right track did not happen. Having become a part of the brotherhood of the minions of the Lord, he often wondered at what exact moment, everything went wrong, and he understood that it was certainly not after that shameful and stupid scene by the lake when he pushed Lily away from himself. Oh no! Everything happened much earlier! Right at that time, when the doors of his parental house slammed behind his back and the gates of Hogwarts, a fairytale castle, were opened. But the tale was too far from being real. Nobody cared for a poor half-blood with an aggressive character. Peers despised a tattered boy who, by a stupid accident, landed on Slytherin, a girl with a sunny smile made too many friends, and the Marauders continued their bullying. Humiliation and open threats were perceived by the good Headmaster in the yellow mantle as innocent tricks, and the werewolf left without a leash was just a funny pet dog, "my boy, do not think to tell anyone about Remus." He recalled how he sat on a bed in the Infirmary wing and looked at the shaggy ghost of the moon. Back then, he firmly decided to join the Death Eaters in order to find someone who cared among the same outcasts.

_NOX_

Darkness was hovering above his head, swallowing all the possible light and hope. Death followed death; one defeat gave rise to another. Nobody needed his vows and duties - neither the serpentine nerd nor the good grandfather in the yellow robes, who moved the Order, like puppets in a play too far from a children's fairy tale. What could he offer them? His life in exchange for Lily's life? Who cared about a sullen ragged man? He was begging at the feet of both his Masters, of both Light and Darkness, hoping to do at least something, but the ongoing party did not take into account the interests of an obsessive troublemaker. He later asked himself if he loved Lily the way he thought he did, and with terrifying clarity, he came to the conclusion that everything bright in his life was somehow connected with her, and this light entailed inevitable darkness. But he continued to fight for one goal he knew, for a blind desire to prove to everyone that he was more than a spy, better than a traitor, and worth much more than a tattered man from a working quarter.

_LUMOS_

She crept into his life as light creeps into the cracks of a house immersed in darkness. An insufferable know-it-all with hair sticking out in different directions and a million questions about everything at once and about nothing specifically. She was too far from Lily to even try to compare them, and too different from the others with whom he had to contact anyway. She seemed to be the only one who was not afraid of the terrifying professor Snape, with her bad temper able to finish off even a saint. But she was not a saint and certainly did not ask to be finished. She just looked into his eyes and saw something in them that he himself did not suspect. For example, she wrote ridiculous notes to him with words of gratitude for a brewed potion that saved her after meeting with a basilisk, or apologized for accidentally (he knew for sure that deliberately) setting fire to his robes, or babbled something inaudible in gratitude for the help after her failure with the Polyjuice potion. Admittedly, a cat's mustache adorned her, as he crookedly noted to himself. And yet, she defended him so fiercely before Lupin and the whole teacher's office after that humiliating incident with Neville's Boggart that he admitted to hearing. Teenage love, multiplied by maximalism and lack of common sense, what else, if not this, was all that was happening? He did not value his life, because he was not afraid to die, still, no one would care. One spy, who failed business of hundreds of such meaningless cases, who would remember Professor Snape, who threw his life under the feet of the Light? The girl with the Time-Turner, sneaking into the Shrieking Shack definitely would.

_"I suppose you do not consider yourself a hero, but you are better than them. All of them, on both sides of the barricades."_

The light slowly illuminated the stagnant darkness.

_LUMOS_

They met ten years after the war, still licking their wounds and hiding in the darkness that became their life. Yes, the tale of the victory of Light over Darkness was good for naive kids. They did not believe in fairy tales. They stood at the obelisk to all the war heroes who had fallen and survived and realized that they had not fought in vain.

_Hermione Jean Granger_

_Severus Tobias Snape_

He did not consider himself a hero, but she would argue with him, so she crept to the obelisk immediately after that memorable victory night in May to secretly engrave his name on the stone. To understand a little more than was available to the meager understanding of the rest, in order to save his life. He held out his palm to take her hand.

Light is not afraid of darkness.

Darkness really needs light.

\- Finite Incantatem-


End file.
